Month: March 2016

Some days I can’t make my pen go the way I want it to. I can draw the same line over and over again, and it’ll keep veering off course. It takes gnashing of teeth and crossing of eyes to make it work. Other days, no problem. Today was the former, unfortunately, but I did finish the coloring book page with the aerial view of the Boston Medical Center area. I actually prefer a slightly sketchy look. To my eye, it gives character. I don’t think the lines need to be perfectly straight. I started coloring it in because it helps me see the overall drawing better. You might remember the little section of this that I was working on a day or two ago: I had to make a few changes to the Medical Center building, and I added in a lot of other details. Such as more trees, and windows, windows, and more windows. I draw pretty goofy looking cars, I have to admit, but I’m okay with that, too. My South End …

When I first wrote about my South End Boston adult coloring book project, there were not yet adult coloring books cramming book store and art supply store shelves everywhere. Now, quite often there are. It’s been fascinating to watch the craze take hold in the process of making this book.

While going through some photographs, I came across some shots I took in 2009 of Shepard Fairey murals that had been plastered onto various exterior brick walls around town. I know that many people, including the Boston Police Department, saw his putting up of these paper murals as acts of vandalism. I’m not going to argue with that, but I did (still do) think they were beautiful.

The view seen in this artwork is from my kitchen window. It’s in Boston’s SoWa neighborhood, which for many years has been home to lots of old brick factory warehouse buildings. Recently an entire block between here and there was purchased…

To me, there is little that compares to the experience of happily losing all track of time taking in artworks at a museum. And I find it fascinating that it’s a public venue in which people can respectably linger around in their own unconscious worlds, together with other people. I wrote about this a bit last year in My Dreamy Museum Day Abroad. Visiting an art museum solo is also one of my favorite pleasures, so the Huff Post’s recent arts & culture piece, Six Reasons to Go to a Museum Alone, struck a chord with me. ☯ A few weeks ago I wrote that I was about to try my hand at potato carving and stamping. Right after saying that, I heard from one of my oldest and dearest friends. She had a heart attack a few days earlier. She was fine, actually, and in her usual good humor. A relief to be sure, but it made me contemplate how much I love my friend, and how grateful I am to still know her. So I suppose it’s no shock that my first instinct when I …

You really gain a heightened awareness of what goes into the design and creation of something when you have to do it yourself. The design process involved learning to think about translating from one medium (paper) to another (glass & leading), so that…